Rise Of The Cord Cutters: Is It Time To Quit Sky?

There’s something of a revolution going on in the TV industry right now. In the United States, where huge companies hold monopolies over pay-tv with little to no competition inside a city, customers are fed up with the terrible customer service, high prices and little choice they’re offered. It’s hardly a new sentiment amongst the population, but for the very first time, technology has meant that those that have the will can cut out their reliance on cable monopolies all together. It began with the highly illegal act of downloading films and TV, but as companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime have sprung up, it’s moved towards a legal, and much more compelling model. Those that shun the big cable companies have come to be known as cord cutters, but it’s not just limited to the United States.

Increasingly in the UK, more and more young people are seeing the long 18 month contracts and high monthly costs of the likes of Sky and Virgin Media and turning towards a mixture of Freeview, catch-up TV services and paid subscriptions in order to get their TV fix. The question for the rest of us that have Sky subscriptions is whether it’s time to get on board with the cord cutters and ditch our subscriptions?

The answer, of course, is a relatively complex one. In 2015, it’s certainly possible to abandon your Sky subscription, but the question is whether you’re ready to abandon convenience in favour of freedom. Let’s examine what it’d take to replace Sky, and whether you should dial that Sky customer service number, shall we?

The very first thing you’d need was a Freeview HD box with a built in hard drive. These can cost upwards of £100, although once you’ve purchased one there are no further costs to consider. This’ll give you access more than 60 standard digital terrestrial channels like the BBC, ITV network, Channel 4 (and its sister channels), 5 and many other popular channels like Dave. With Freeview HD, you’ll also get access to 12 HD channels, though these are simply HD versions of the SD channels you’ve already got. Freeview claim that 90% of the top channels in the UK are included in Freeview, but what about the other 10%?

Well, that 10% is typically made up of the kind of exclusive pay TV channels that Sky have built into their service. Channels like Sky Movies and Sky Sports are completely irreplaceable to millions of Brits, but there are options, most notably NOW TV. That service is owned and operated by Sky and offers a low-cost way to get Sky’s premium channel offerings on your TV with no contract.

The ‘Entertainment’ package (£6.99 a month) brings 12 channels not found on Freeview to your screen and the ‘Sports’ (£31.99 a month) and ‘Movies’ (£9.99 a month) packages bring exactly what you’d expect. Unfortunately, these require a strong internet connection to work, and won’t integrate with your Freeview channels, meaning that you have to switch inputs on your TV and launch an application to watch them. Put simply, it’s far from seamless, and can be expensive if you take all the packages.

Finally, you’d likely want to take a Netflix or Amazon Prime subscription too. They cost £6.99 a month and £79 a year respectively, but will give you access to some great exclusive programmes and a large catalogue of great TV and films from years past. Once again though, this relies on launching yet another application and the strength of your Internet connection.

With those three services in place, you’ll be quite close to replicating the experience of a Sky subscription, albeit one which misses out a number of channels. It will, however, offer you a degree of financial freedom that Sky doesn’t. You’ll be able subscribe and leave services at will, depending on your financial situation or whims, but you will lose out on the ease of use and support that Sky offer. Clearly then, it’s quite possible to cobble together a substitute for your Sky subscription, but in these early days of the cord cutting movement, we don’t believe there’s a good enough substitute just yet.